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Judge Bans Most Shooting At Scituate Gun Club

A judge has permanently barred shooting rifles and handguns at a Scituate gun club, extending a temporary injunction put in place after residents complained of stray bullets.

Superior Court Justice Charles Hely first issued the temporary ban against Scituate Rod and Gun Club in 2009 after nearby residents said stray bullets struck three homes between 2004 and 2008, according to The Patriot Ledger.

“Judge Hely knows that the bullets came from the gun club and he’s never going to let the gun club endanger its neighbors again,” Dan Dwyer, the attorney for the neighbors, told WBZ-AM today. But the Ledger reports:

Hely said his injunction can only be lifted if the club proves it has made “substantial safety improvements in the physical conditions and procedures at the club.”

In addition to making the temporary ban permanent, Hely has ordered the club to pay $22,000 in damages to the plaintiffs.

In late 2008, WCVB-TV reported on a stray bullet entering a laundry room in a home a half-mile away from the gun club.

"The best that we could envision was that a ricochet occurred shooting off of a bowling pin, [which was being used as a target]," a club official told WCVB at the time.

Dwyer told the Ledger the club can still host skeet shooting (with shotguns) and other non-handgun and -rifle activities.

This program aired on April 26, 2012. The audio for this program is not available.

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Benjamin Swasey Digital Manager
Ben is WBUR's digital news manager.

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